News & Events

MSPC New Member – Malta Maritime Pilots

Date: 10/10/2014

We are pleased to announce that Malta Maritime Pilots has recently become a new member of the MSPC.

The Malta Maritime Pilots Co-operative Society Ltd was officially founded on the 9th of April 2003 and consisted of 15 Maritime Pilots and one secretary with an initial investment of 34,500euros. There were initial concerns as to the success of this co-operative, as 10 years ago the mentality in Malta was that the co-operative model was not practical for professional persons. This was the first successful co-operative for professional persons in Malta. The co-op now hosts the largest pool of Master Mariners in Malta

From the foundation date till today there was no looking back and the co-operative has now grown to 16 maritime pilots as well as 24 persons and 6 part-timers employed with the co-op or subsidiaries of the co-op.

Recognizing the industry trends that new generation ships were being designed on a bigger scale and that our ports' relatively small scale infrastructure would remain the same the co-op invested heavily in training. With the first training program at Port Revel, France coming at a cost of over 200,000euro the co-op realized that it would make more sense in the long run to invest in a local research simulator and training centre and a subsidiary of the co-op was set up. This was a substantial investment for the co-op, to date over 1,250,000 euros have been invested in the training centre. Many persons may not be aware that very few, if any world wide maritime pilot groups have such a training centre for 16 pilots.

The co-op has made substantial investments in the pilot boats and are today proud to announce that since taking over the responsibility of running the pilot boat 5 years ago, the pilot boat service has never failed. Although today it may not resonate so much prior to the pilots running the pilot boats, pilot boat failure was not such a rare occurrence. This success is due to the hard work and to the investments made in procuring new boats, the appointment of a pilot boat fleet superintendent, the radical and costly change in having dedicated pilot boat crews and the investment made in the training of and certification of pilot boat crews.

The co-op is also actively participating in E.U. programs taking part in CertiPilots together with maritime pilots from Spain, Portugal and Turkey and the Sea talk programme together with 10 other partners led by the Centre for factories of the U.K.